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'Hanged' boy wakes from coma
24/07/2005 22:10 - (SA)
Phillip de Bruin, Beeld
Johannesburg - "I love you."
These three words were the first Jovan Smit, 10, uttered when he saw the face of his mother, Daleen Smit, in the intensive care unit of the Bougainville Hospital in Pretoria on Sunday morning.
Jovan had been admitted to hospital in a coma on Tuesday after he apparently hanged himself, using his jacket, from burglar bars in the Hermanstad Primary School changerooms, in what looks to have been a game.
Jovan's life had still been in danger on Thursday, but by Friday, he had started showing signs of recovering from the coma.
On Sunday his mother said: "Jovan will from now on be a living witness to God's grace.
Knelt
"When I knelt over his bed this morning (Sunday), his eyes opened and he said, with great effort, "I love you". He barely managed the "you". (The family often speaks English at home since Jovan's father, who had committed suicide, spoke English to him.)
"He is now in a semi-coma, but the latest brain scan shows that the brain swelling has subsided considerably. "Doctors say he will be taken off the ventilator on Tuesday, but he is still being fed intravenously.
"But the little rascal is already fighting the nurse. When she says, 'Come on, it's time for a bath', he shakes his head vigorously from side to side."
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